Where The Wild Roses Grow

onwards

A passage from the book Jimmy Kelly – Streetkid,

published in May 2017

An ode to my Georgia – that beautiful girl that I once lost, then found.

It was a rainy January morning in Stuttgart. The streets were mostly empty and suffered from that post-Christmas dreariness. People were out of money. The Christmas lights swung in the icy wind and were switched on as if they were to desperately hold on to a festive feeling that was already gone. Neon coloured sale posters in the window shops were to draw in the very few shoppers that were out and on the hunt for bargains. I hadn't slept well that night. As the wind roared around my van, I kept mistaking it for people that tried to break in. It hadn't happened for a couple of months so I figured it was about time. But as morning fell, nobody came and I started my day because I had to. I walked the five minutes into the city centre. There I opened my guitar case, said my prayers and wired up the microphone before starting on my first song of the day. I don't remember what I sang, but I immediately noticed that it was a tough crowd that day. People were in a hurry and seemed to have used up their kindness over the festive season.

After singing a couple of songs, one of my guitar strings broke and as I was contemplating whether I should bother changing it, I noticed a woman watching me. Only a few metres down from where I was standing, she took shelter under the tent roof of a closed food stand. During the day they would serve fries, German sausages and burgers, but it was too early for any of that. I remember my stomach rumbling at the thought of it.

'I know who you are,' she said to me. I smiled at her, thinking I'd really better go. I had done a year on the streets at that point, but I never got used to people recognising me from a previous life. Some would say a better one, but I wasn't so sure about that. Still, I was never ready for their judgements. And I never found a way of explaining that I felt happier on the streets than I had done during my last years as a famous popstar. To many, the world of showbiz seemed like a heaven out of their reach. Having been there, I can confirm that most of the time it is hell.

'You don't look well,' she continued, expressing her worries about my wellbeing. It didn't bother me because she was right. I hadn't eaten a full meal in three days. I was drowning in debt with no sight of it ever getting better. I didn't look well because I didn't feel it. Hadn't done for quite a long time. In fact, I was fast approaching a point where I would forget what 'well' felt like altogether. It was the thing she said next, that did startle me. Because she was a stranger. And somehow she hit the nail right on the head.

'Is it because of the beautiful girl you lost? The ballerina?'

I didn't know how to respond. Over the last couple of years when people told me they were worried about me because of what had become of me, they had always talked about my mental health or my physical state. The bags under my eyes and my hollow cheeks. The pale skin. Or the fact that I was no longer in contact with most of my siblings. No longer famous or rich. And when they tried to heal me they all, one-by-one, offered me money that I never accepted. There were only very few people that tried to find the source of most of my pain and sorrow. Maybe because they were afraid to put a name to it or maybe because they thought that after so many years, it could no longer be her.

Truth was that it was always her. And I never learned how to deal with both the knowledge of having lost her and the fact that I only had myself to blame. The woman on the street, the stranger, seemed to know this. It confused me and she must have realised.

'I see it in your eyes, kid. They are different from before. I have seen you with her and you were different then. There was a liveliness that you seem to have lost. Play me one of her favourite songs.'